After Vodundays · Transparency · ONG Wa Afriki
Roots tourism has a reputation to rebuild on this exact question: who actually touches the money the diaspora commits? This page answers with figures, named beneficiaries, not promises.
10M
FCFA generated per edition (≈€15,250)
65%
Returned directly to local stakeholders
6
Editions held to date
≈60M
FCFA cumulative since the first edition
The rule in 60 words
Every After Vodundays edition generates about 10 million FCFA. 65%, about 6.5 million FCFA, is returned directly to local stakeholders in Ouidah, with no middleman, no agency commission. This is not a marketing estimate: it's how every provider in the program actually gets paid.
Who touches the money
2 host families
Paid directly, with no middleman, for homestay lodging. The rate is theirs, never negotiated down by an outside agency.
4 tradition-guardians
Bokonons, Hounon, Mami Wata priestesses, paid at their own rates for every ceremony, every consultation, every transmission opened to participants.
Local guides and drivers
Recruited in Ouidah, trained in local history and community protocols, not contractors imported from Cotonou or elsewhere.
Grand-Popo's artisanal salt producers
The igneous salt of Grand-Popo, exported by ONG Wa Afriki, directly pays the women who produce it using ancestral methods.
Why it matters
The debate over who really benefits from roots tourism runs across all of West Africa, local communities watching buses pass without seeing the revenue, land and prices soaring while those on the ground remain spectators. After Vodundays was built the opposite way from the start: 100 places per edition, never more, so that every franc returned goes to an identified person, not a diluted budget line.
ONG Wa Afriki · N°0108/MISP · Ouidah, Benin
This is not one more marketing line. It's the structural reason 65% of what you commit stays in Ouidah, and nowhere else.